“Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake;
In the cauldron boil and bake.
Eye of newt and toe of frog;
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog.
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting;
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing.
For a charm of powerful trouble;
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble!
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
In William Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth” in Act IV, Scene 1, is this scary-sounding concoction from the cauldron. When in fact, these are not the scary parts of critters, they are code words for Herbs and Plants used in magickal brews. Herbology was put into Secret Code Words and Phrases. Witches used these codes to keep near and dear their trade secrets to medicinal and magical spell potions, tinctures, teas, and medicines. The powers of healing that plants inherently had was the true magick, not the conjuring rhymes of the concocter.
Some examples of this Secret Code of Herbology:
Eye of Newt was code for Mustard Seed
Dog’s Tongue was Conoglossum Officinale
Bat’s Wing is Holly
An Eagle is Garlic
Beggar’s Button is Burdock
Blood of Kronos hid well the addition of Cedar
Fairie’s Finger meant Foxglove
Frog’s Foot add Bulbous Buttercup
Hairs of a Hamadryas Baboon was Dill Weed
Hundred Eyes sprinkle in Periwinkle
Lady’s Slipper mix in American Valerian
Pig’s Snout was Dandelion
Semen of Hermes was added some Dill
Wolf’s Milk meant Kansui Root
The list of these codes goes on and on!
Plant Magick
or simply Herbology; the study of plants and their effects, goes back over 5,000 years, tracing its medicinal and magickal uses to ancient Egypt. Alternative Medicine Practices use the information that was gathered and shared by the Ancient Ones in healing remedies today. The Witches of Old had a good chuckle of two as Muggles would stumble upon their “WItches Brews” with all of these code names, and go traipsing off to parts unknown trying to find “Eye of Newt” and “Wing of Bat”. They would inevitably try to coax an answer from an “unsuspecting Witch”, and that would just start another wild goose chase for naught.
Even modern medicine today (BIg Pharma) tries to mimic the ‘magick of old’ in their chemically synthesized concoctions, with terrible results.
The truth of the matter about Herbology is:
“Mother Nature” provides a natural healing remedy to any Dis-Ease that exists. A Natural Cure will fix the root cause without any side effects. Also, whatever it is that afflicted you, the natural cure could be found close by. This is the problem of being able to buy any food we want, from any corner of the globe, at any time of year. We were never meant to eat anything that didn’t grow in our own habitat, at the time of year it was to be grown and harvested.
Interestingly enough; if you try to copy nature with unnatural ingredients, you will only mask the symptoms, never get to the real root cause of the Dis-Ease, and suffer side-effects and negative, unintended interactions.
